Quote:
Originally Posted by becominghorse  while true that is vaguely possible democratization might spread if there's time, on balance it simply doesn't equal the gross stupidity of pretending you were going after your attacker (who was in Iraq only for a day or two, it seems, Mistah Bin Laden finding Mistah Hussein a bit too profligate with his hundreds of irreligious whores, against which 10 or 12 wives living in caves seemed relatively Dale Evans/Roy Rogers/Pat Robertson...). |
I have never understood that Bin Laden was in Iraq at all. There was some Al Qaeda operative ... Atta, perhaps?
I agree that the Iraq war was the grossest stupidity that the American government has perpetrated in my lifetime.
I agree that Obama has been the most prescient leading politician with respect to the Iraq venture.
I don't blame Bush for Bin Laden's escape, BTW. You seem to assume that any reasonable effort would have caught him in the vast mountain ranges of Afghanistan. But we can't even be sure if we knew at any time where he really was. It was guesswork. And even if we find the right haystack, needles are small.
You are right to say ventures outside Israel and the Palestinian territories do nothing to promote a solution within them. But a great deal is going on in Israel and the Palestinian territories, a good deal of it at the instigation of Bush & Co. We can only wish them well on that one.
Pakistan is a whole other chapter. I think it's far too soon, however, to worry about fundamentalists actually taking over the government ... and accordingly, I think worries about the Pakistani bomb being controlled by fundies are currently overblown. And that's my main concern with Pakistan.
But stranger things have happened ...
Anyway, your post has set out so many axes for discussion that one couldn't address it at anything much short of book-length.
And I don't have that much to say, or the time to say it.
